A boy moves to Manhattan and meets a girl. The girl. She doesn't like him at first. Still, he persists. He's endearing in a bumbling sort of way. But will she ever recognize his virtues? Will she ever get it through her head that he's the protagonist of the film and that she has no choice?

This is the general terrain of "Ed's Next Move," a low-budget relationship comedy set in Manhattan that will inevitably be compared to "The Brothers McMullen."

"Ed's Next Move," which opens today at the Lumiere, has just enough charm to get by -- but none to spare. Matt Ross, who plays the hero, does not look like a movie's idea of what a young guy fresh off the bus from Wisconsin should look like: He looks like a young guy fresh off the bus from Wisconsin.

But that speaks well of "Ed's Next Move." It is never compelling, but it is engaging, minute by minute, scene by scene. Its honesty keeps it interesting. Though a fictional piece, it feels as if it all happened to somebody. The details are offbeat; the atypical plot turns suggest a filmmaker who gets his ideas from life, not from movies.

In one odd comic scene in the hero's apartment, the romantic momentum of a first date is oblit erated by a couple of mice getting caught in a glue trap. When poor Ed starts to put the mice out of their misery, his dream woman goes home. "It was a good first date," he laments later. "Then I committed two murders."

The film captures the peculiar stress of bachelorhood. A pretty woman sits next to Ed in a coffee shop, and he thinks he has to talk to her -- otherwise, he'll never know. But talking to strangers isn't easy. Movies like to show young men as swingers, living a life of adventure. But a 25-year-old guy is often starting his career and doesn't have time to carouse.

Callie Thorne plays the feisty musician who becomes the object of Ed's fancy. Like Ross, Thorne is not the usual movie type, but she's attractive, feisty and appealing.

Still, "Ed's Next Move" is a very small picture -- not only in its size and budget but also in its aspirations. It's just a little romance, a minor anecdote, well told.